SOLDIERS’ GRAVES

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 June 1921, Page 8

SOLDIERS’ GRAVES

HIGH COMMISSIONER’S REPLY. In response to an application to the High Commissioner for New Zealand and the Director of War Graves Registration asking for permission to have a personal epitaph engraved on the headstone of a New Zealand soldier who died and was buried in France, the following message has been received by the widow from Sir Janies Allen —“. ... I much regret that I am unable to put forward your request for a personal inscription on your husband’s grave, for the reason that I have recently received a communication from the New Zealand Government, intimating that they feel unable to allow personal inscriptions to be engraved on the headstones to be erected over the graves of New Zealand soldiers. Uniformity being a cardinal point in the treatment of Dominion graves, I feel you will appiecialo the undesirability of making adistinction between one headstone and another, and, in the circumstances, I am sure you will not press your request for a. personal inscription.” lhe words are almost identical with those in the letter of the Principal Undersecretary of the Imperial War Graves Commission, who adds the remainder : “The Commission think the wishes or the New Zealand Government should be respected.” The subject was discussed at. a recent meeting of the Wellington R.S.A. and it was resolved to forward a remit to the Dominion Conference, to be held

shortly at Dunedin, urging that tlie claims of widows to a. personal epitaph on their husband s graves should be respected.